Last week was filled with news comprising
one of Israel’s main goals - to repair the world.But in case you were swamped by negative stories, here are some
of the uplifting highlights.

The saving of innocent life is the top goal
for Israelis.Whilst the death toll in
Syria’s civil war rises, Israel continued to treat hundreds
of Syria’s wounded at its medical centers and IDF field hospital.Meanwhile, the IDF Medical Corps and the
American Air Force Medical Department signed a pact to share and develop
techniques and technologies that will save lives during
humanitarian rescue missions. Away from the battlefield, thanks go to
the anonymous donor who responded to an urgent request on Janglo – one of
Israel’s favorite information boards.Doctors at Israel’s Beilinson Medical Center transplanted
his kidney into a desperately ill mother of five in Ashdod.

Israel’s water technology underpins the
Jewish State’s goal to eliminate drought.EU’s President totally missed the point that if our neighbors truly
sought peace, there would be ample water supplies
for the whole region.Israel’s brand
new Sorek
desalination plant can produce 624,000 cubic meters of water a day, but
ironically EU
policy prevents European countries working with Israel to build
facilities to treat Palestinian Authority wastewater.Israel is also working to eliminate famine.Take a trip to the Vidor Family Visitors’
Center in Israel’s Arava to see how a
desert has been transformed into the jewel in the crown of Israeli
agriculture.

The goals of Israeli medicine are not only
to save life, but also to alleviate suffering.Israel’s Medigus is launching its flexible endoscope for the treatment
of acid reflux.The simple outpatient
procedure can benefit over 16
million people with acid reflux who do not respond to medication.And Israel’s LabStyle Innovations is
distributing its Dario blood glucose-monitoring device in Australia, which will
make life much simpler for some of the 1.2
million Australians officially diagnosed with diabetes.

Many see Israel’s goal as a light to the
nations.Former Spanish Prime Minister
Jose Maria Aznar agrees, reporting that Israel
is strategically vital for a secure, prosperous and influential
Europe.And believe it or not, the UK
wants Israel to bring
technology to the Arab world. The UK-Israel Tech Hub has organized the
Go Global Program for Digital Arabic Content Entrepreneurs.

Israeli startup Cyactive certainly has an
ambitious goal – an
end to all computer viruses.Cyactive detects the core of any virus, because 98% of the code inside a
new virus is copied from existing viruses.Tel Aviv’s SoftWheel has a well-rounded goal – a
comfortable ride whether in a wheelchair, bicycle or aircraft.But to achieve this goal, SoftWheel has
literally re-invented the wheel.Its
“selective suspension” extends or shrinks the wheel’s hub when encountering an
obstacle, dramatically reducing the shock transmitted.

Four Israelis recently achieved some
spectacular individual goals.Hebrew
University of Jerusalem doctoral student Yossi Kabessa won the Singapore
Challenge gold medallion and $100,000 at the Global Young Scientists
Summit in Singapore. He designed a system to detect dangerous materials in
large water supply systems.Weizmann
Professor Yair Reisner won one of Israel’s
Rappaport prizes for his leukemia treatment using stem cells from
incompatible donors.The other winner
was Dr. Yaakov Nahmias from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who discovered
that the grapefruit molecule naringenin can block viruses.But the goal
that wowed the sports world is the one scored by Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer player
Barak Yitzhaki.He performed the
famous bicycle
kick to perfection.

Finally, it’s everyone’s goal to try and stay in good health.Anyone planning to make a new life in the
Jewish State will be happy to hear that the cost of fruits and vegetables in
Israel are lower - sometimes significantly lower - compared to prices of fruits
and vegetables in the United States and Western Europe.With Israeli technology, we can all hope to
achieve the goal of a long
and fruitful life, as enjoyed by Rabbi Zechariah Barashi, who at 114 is
the oldest Jew in the world.Rabbi
Barashi’s mind is a sharp as it was in 1936 when he immigrated to Israel from
Kurdistan.He says, “I have had the
fortune of living in Jerusalem for 75 years. I’m in heaven.”

Israelis know that the Jewish State cannot
afford to lose a single war or conflict.In fact prevention of any loss of innocent life is paramount to
Israelis.And a determined “refusal to
give up” is almost a national character trait that can be seen in many other
aspects of Israeli society.

Israel is one of the top countries working
to prevent or reduce loss of life from cancer.Researchers at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical
Center have just made a major breakthrough by discovering how breast cancer
develops resistance to anti-cancer drugs.The finding should help develop new treatments.And only Israelis can learn how a killer
virus can prevent
loss of life.Scientists at
Israel’s Weizmann Institute have identified how the HIV virus suppresses the
T-cell immune response and can help fight the battle against deadly autoimmune
diseases.

Israelis apply the “preventing loss of
life” principle right across the world.Anat from Israel’s il4syrians.org is called “Syria’s Israeli guardian
angel”. Her 200 volunteers include former Israeli commandos, doctors, social
workers, nurses, and Arabic-speaking trauma specialists who provide
relief to thousands of Syrian refugees.Israel has also not lost track
of the hundreds of thousands who lost everything in Typhoon Haiyan.Agricultural developers from Israel’s Tahal
Group are providing technology assistance to help recovery operations in the
Philippines province of Davao del Sur.Americans and Europeans are also currently experiencing extreme weather
conditions. Many will therefore appreciate Israel’s ClickSoftware which reduces
the huge losses
suffered in those countries by helping to schedule employees
responsible for repairing damage from storms, fires, earthquakes, gas leaks and
burst water mains.

Israeli hi-tech is already the world’s best
hope of preventing massive loss of life
through drought and global starvation.At Tel Aviv’s recent WATEC water technology conference, the JNF
showcased its innovations for preventing
the loss of precious water resourcestoother drought-ravaged
countries and demonstrated how to make non-arable land better suited for
agriculture.Next, take a look at
AgriTask from Israel’s ScanTask - the new “Waze” of agriculture – that helps
farmers make decisions on irrigating, planting, harvesting and the use of
pesticides.

Staying in the water, Israel’s Amiad is
benefiting from new US Navy regulations designed to stop
the loss of water pollutants from its ships.All new vessels assembled at the Navy’s Virginia shipyards will
be fitted with Amiad’s water filters, including the massive new USS John F
Kennedy aircraft carrier.And whilst
we’re afloat, I must highlight that Israel’s Ben Gurion University and Canada’s
Dalhousie University are to jointly build an Internationally recognized Ocean
studies center in Eilat.Among the many
aims of the center is to avert
the loss of endangered marine species.

The International Christian Embassy
Jerusalem is helping to ensure the Jewish State does not
lose connection with its lost tribes by sponsoring the immigration of
another wave of members of India’s Bnei Menashe to Israel, reuniting them with
their families and ancestral homeland.And Israeli artist Irene Orleansky has partnered with the Abayudaya Jewish Community of Uganda
to create "Shalom, Mirembe!" as part of a music collection from
Israelites and Jews of Africa and Asia.

Here are two recent examples where Israel
strives not to
lose the connection between its people and their heritage.Firstly, the Yad Ezer La’Haver
("helping hand to a friend") association arranged for twelve
Holocaust survivors to celebrate a joint bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah ceremony,
as they lost
the chance to mark their coming of age during their youth.“At the age of thirteen I was in
Auschwitz," said one of them. "There wasn't really anyone to talk to
about celebrations."Secondly,
please watch this new 7-minute documentary featuring Jewish families who lived
in Jerusalem’s Old City for generations, but lost their homes
when the Arab Legion evicted them in 1948 after the State of Israel was
declared. They returned 19 years later in 1967 after Israeli forces liberated
the Old City during the Six Day War.

Finally, we return to the Israeli
determination not to lose a single soul.On a recent Shabbat morning, two religious students visited our local
Netanya Laniado Hospital to distribute sweets and wish everyone a “speedy
recovery.”They sang to a 60-year-old
woman who was close to death and by Monday she had revived, amazing the medical
staff. “Thanks
to them I am alive,” she said.

When I see news of Syrian civilians being
barrel-bombed by their government and others needlessly starving to death, it
is clear that only Israel can pull this crazy world out of its spiraling
descent into self-destruction.

In the last few weeks, floods of wounded
Syrians have been seeking and receiving treatment in
Israeli hospitals.A Christian
group even rushed a Muslim
Syrian Kurdish child from Iran-dominated Iraq to Israel, to repair the
hole in her heart. At the IDF
field hospital on the Syrian border, soldiers apply a core Jewish
value: “Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world”. We then witnessed the
surreal spectacle of Arabs on Al-Jazeera TV questioning as to why the Syrian
army, Hezbollah and other Islamic military groups cannot be more humane
like the Israeli army.

Every week the Jewish State gives hope to
the sick and disadvantaged around the world.Just look at some of the latest medical discoveries and innovations from
Israeli universities and bio-techs.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem have just discovered a cure for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) - the 13th biggest killer
in the Western world.They have
patented low-level laser treatment to reduce inflammation and promote wound
healing that will transform the lives of the 200,000 new patients diagnosed
with AAA in the US each year.Still
with the Hebrew U, researchers there have developed a peptide to counteract
enzymes in high blood sugar that cause brain
cell death - the reason why diabetics have a much higher risk of
Alzheimer’s and dementia.And doctors throughout
Africa are anxiously waiting for HUJ researchers to announce their solution
to the malaria parasite.The
deadly disease is responsible for more than one million deaths each year.

Israel’s bio-techs have recently delivered
hopeful news for many desperate patients.Novocure’s clinical study of its NovoTTF therapy
for pancreatic cancer demonstrated a significant decrease in cell count
and reduced tumor volume. BiondVax announced that tests prove its universal flu
vaccine matches all
six pandemic flu strains in the world today, including bird flu strains
H5N1 and H7N9 that have spread to humans and killed hundreds of people.Oramed’s Phase 2a clinical trial of its
ORMD-0801 oral insulin capsule for the treatment of type
2 diabetes met all primary and secondary endpoints. And MS
patients can now stop four of their seven daily injections of Copaxone
now that the US FDA has approved Teva’s more effective 40-ml dose.

The world’s increasing numbers of hungry
families depend on Israeli agricultural innovations.The latest includes a low-cost system from Israel’s Energy
Industry Ltd. to grow
vegetables in extreme cold.It
injects hot water into fine tubes to distribute heat over wide surfaces for
large greenhouses and has been sold to the government of Georgia where
temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius.Meanwhile, Israel’s Haifa Group has just launched a free mobile app (iOS
or Android) that helps farmers determine the precise
amount of fertilizer and nutrients needed for each type of crop.And at the end of next year, Israel will see
the launch of the Venus Vegetation
and Environment Monitoring Micro-satellite that is our key hope for
preventing catastrophic deterioration in the
state of the planet.Israel
Aerospace Industries is building the hull of the satellite and Israel’s Elbit
is building the camera.

I conclude, as I began, with a plea that
this message is brought home to our neighbors in the Middle East and to the
rest of the world.Embrace the Start-up
Nation, as have the many Palestinian Arabs hoping to better themselves.Such as those at SodaStream
who have made vociferous appeals “not to boycott us”.Or the hundreds
of Arab students studying at Ariel University in Samaria, as observed
by the Czech Ambassador to Israel on his recent visit there.

As Israel’s Prime Minister said at the
World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, “We have no choice
– to
survive we had to innovate.”